Clearly, racism in the DUP isn’t confined to Robinson, as the words of Dineen Walker demonstrate. Paradoxically, though, while the DUP decided that, due to her comments, Walker wasn’t to be considered for the post of Mayor of Newtownabbey, it doesn’t appear to have any issue with Robinson continuing as First Minister. Even with the wider Paisley dynasty chipping away at the margins, Robinson appears very much the absolute ruler of the DUP these days, with one rule for himself and another rule for everyone else.

Absolutism in the DUP isn’t really the core issue here, but rather absolutism more generally, in society. A racist attack, like in Parkmount Street, allows an obvious causal link to be drawn between people being forced from their homes due to some perceived otherness (in this case race and/or religion), the preaching of a relatively local pastor and the subsequent support shown to him by the First Minister. Solutions here are obvious; some high profile visits to the victims, apologies (of sorts) broadcast across the media and there the story is ended, everyone having learnt their lessons. Yet, such a tidy narrative doesn’t extend to the prevalence of racist attacks and, whether we like to admit it or not, the underlying dynamic of racially-motivated crime (along with homophobia and sectarianism) persists, effectively un-addressed. The reality is often the case, such as in Parkmount Street, that the victims leave after the story has supposedly ended. High profile stories are managed, spun and then the news moves on.

In the south, a story re-emerged last week of 796 malnourished babies who were buried in an unmarked grave in the Bon Secours home in Tuam in County Galway between the 1920s and 1960s. Over on Feministire, Stephanie Lord has written an excellent post tracing the threads of modern official misogyny and social injustices directly from the attitudes and absolutism that created the institutional abuses of the twentieth century (and note that we are only now hearing detail on similar institutions in the north). It isn’t very hard to find echoes of that same absolutism resonating loudly in the kidnapping of school girls by Boko Haram or the death sentence passed on Meriam Yehya Ibrahim in Sudan (ironically, cited as the source of, or justification for, Pastor McConnell’s own racist preaching).

In reality, the harsh experience of the brutal realities of inter-community sectarian conflict may still condition some collective responses in the north. Racist verbal abuse, meekly reported violence, homophobia all appear, to some extent, passively tolerated since they register so low on the scale of the possibilities people are all too familiar with. Indeed, even with all the attendant publicity, last Saturday’s protest was, in hindsight, poorly attended compared to the likes of the 2003 anti-war rally. At some level, there may be a slight hesitancy about how such a protest will play out in the news media: do you attend a protest that may, at some level, be depicted as a protest about you? The extension of responsibility for Peter Robinson’s comments to all of the DUP seems to partially illustrate this point.

‘Hate-crimes’ [I hate the Orwellian look of that term but its got currency now] like racism and homophobia segment society to attack a group of people by attaching negative connotations to them based on some preconceived difference. One of the key elements is introducing the absolutism that doesn’t recognise complexities, such as that Islam, like Christianity, is a broad mosaic. Blurring the responsibility gently and imperceptibly pushes out the boundaries, dumbs down, dilutes the problem and creates the space where absolutes can be used: we all did it, so don’t blame me.

Subtle shifts in language like that are very much an obstacle to isolating and reducing the likes of racist, misogynistic and homophobic attitudes. Another example is the article published by John Nagle yesterday in The Conversation as Nightmare in Northern Ireland seeing race replace religion as society’s open sore and then on The Slateas In Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics Unite … to Hate Sexual and Racial Minorities. Not only does it not actually manage to create an argument to back up the claim in either title, but it also, in its way, quietly implicates everyone in the north. As a variation on the they-are-all-as-bad-as-each other myth that the self-proclaimed centre in the north usually employs, absolutes are utilised to avoid doing what seems to be regarded as unpalatable: explore the actual detail and complexity and identify the source of the problem. A measured response would segment communities and individuals to properly identify, isolate and challenge those promoting racist, misogynistic or homophobic language and violence, rather than deploy absolutes to implicate others along with them.

In that respect, and unless they are happy to endorse what he said, individual DUP members should refuse to accept corporate blame for Peter Robinson’s words. The local community in Tuam can’t all shoulder the blame for those behind the social architecture that created the Bon Secours home. Muslims aren’t responsible for the horrific attitudes in Sudan, no more than Christians can accept blame for what other Christians do worldwide. Dealing with racism, like homophobia or misogyny, demands a range of approaches. The most obvious are educational, regulatory and policy-driven. What seems to be the least obvious, is to explore both complexity and detail, both things conventional news media simply doesn’t do well. Individuals like Peter Robinson should be left to breathe their own oxygen and not taint others around them. Only when they are challenged to accept responsibility for their own words and actions will we appear to be isolating and resolving such negative attitudes.